Question : Flight Safety Norms

(a) whether the Ministry is aware that a number of airlines are not following the flight safety norms and also not maintaining the details of the aircraft''s digital flight data recording for at least six months;

(b) if so, the details thereof and the action taken by the Government thereon; and

(c) whether the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is planning one time surprise surveillance of airlines to see if the airlines are following slight safety norms and if so, the details thereof?

Minister of State in the Ministry of CIVIL AVIATION
(Dr Mahesh Sharma)

(a) to (c) All the scheduled airlines are following the safety norms laid down in Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) and circulars issued in this regard from time to time. However if any safety violation comes to the notice of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), appropriate action is taken against the concerned personnel/ organization.

CAR Section-5, Series-F, Part-II has laid down the requirements for monitoring of flight parameters recorded in Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) which is being complied by all scheduled airlines.

However in the recent past, few of the DFDR readouts of some fleet were found corrupted after downloading from DFDR unit. DGCA, then issued instructions to all the scheduled airlines to carry out inspection of DFDR data for the entire fleet on one time basis to detect any missing or corrupt data. This was followed up by the surveillance by the DGCA.

DGCA carries out surveillances, inspections and regulatory audits of airlines as per the Annual Surveillance Programme to ensure compliance to the laid down requirements. This is to ensure safety of operations. The findings recorded in the surveillance and regulatory audit reports are reviewed and forwarded to the operators for appropriate action by them. The action taken reports submitted by the operators on the observations is reviewed for the appropriateness.